Top Shot Analysis: S4 E4 "Crossbow Crossfire"

There was a lot happening both on and off the range in this week's episode. The contestants stepped away from guns to try their hand at crossbows and blue team looked like they were going to take a step away from being petty to actually work as a team, only to trick everyone, including themselves.

There is a fair amount to talk about with this episode, but I just want to start with a question.

Is anyone else really starting to dig this season?

Perhaps it's because I'm blogging this season, or perhaps it's because I've been able to interact with some of the contestants thanks to Twitter, but as the season wears on, I just find a bigger grin on my face with each passing episode. Who would have thought there would be more to stay tuned in for after we were treated to grenade launchers in the second episode? But this season continues to impress with compelling contestants, thrilling challenges, and exciting weapons.

Anyway onto the episode.

The Challenges

I have to say I was glad to see the BowTech StrykeZone 350 crossbow in this episode. Now, I'll never tire of guns, exploding targets, or contestants with ridiculous looking earguards (seriously though, safety first) but the thing I like about Top Shot is that it has always been about more than being able to shoot a gun. I like when they bring in the primitive weapons, but I love when they bring in modern day versions of ancient weapons. If History Channel was once the channel where "History comes alive" (that was there slogan once, right?) it is certainly demonstrated when Top Shot brings in these modern day incarnations. 

I was surprised to see that the contestants practiced on a stationary target and were then put into a challenge with a rotating one. Usually the contestants practice with a simple moving target to get the feel for how to shoot the weapon at a moving target, and are then faced with  more complex moving target in the actual challenge. However there were a lot of comparisons being made between shooting a rifle and shooting the crossbow, so if there was an understanding that the contestants had basic rifle skills, this may explain the reason behind this decision. 

The challenges this season continue to impress with their complex staging that continues to emphasize the importance of team strategy as well as team shooting. This challenge posed the question of whether to send your better shooters out early and get out to an early lead, or save them for when they had an opportunity to score more points. 

The initial 3-0 lead blue team took had me questioning red teams strategy, but while blue team kept repeating the mantra "slow is smooth, smooth is fast" red team seemed to be the ones taking it to heart. Red team is continuing to perhaps be one of the most cohesive teams in Top Shot history, without being obnoxious about it. 

The elimination challenge looked surprisingly difficult. Now, I'm not saying other elimination challenges are easy, but I think I would have gotten incredibly frustrated trying to nail that tiny balloon at the top of the pendulum. The nice thing about this challenge is it continued to demonstrate the importance of consistency in these challenges. Anyone can get a lucky run going, but if a shooter perseveres and finds a pace that works for them, they can always catch up and make things interesting. 

I would take this opportunity to harp on Littlejohn for his inability to hit his final target and allow Gallagher to catch up with him, but that was a visibly difficult shot to make. We know that elimination challenges are filmed over the course of the day with practice in the morning and the challenge in the afternoon. In this episode it was clear to see the sun was setting and the shadows at the top of the wall were obscuring that final balloon for Littlejohn. That's already a difficult shot to make with the low clearance and small target size, and the poor lighting only added to the difficulty. 

The design of these challenges and the contestants skill level have kept these challenges close and exciting to watch this season.

The Contestants

I want to talk in broader terms for minute before getting into specific contestants. As I wrote above, red team is cruising this season, they have three out of four wins and are only down one team member. They have a group with diverse backgrounds, and their overall teamwork is astounding. 

However, contrast this with blue team. A team that has become sorely divided. I wanted to dig into blue team a little here, but the more I thought about the more sympathetic I became. The audience gets a week digest everything that has happened between episodes. It is easy to think that these guys should be able to turn themselves around the next time we tune into the show. But that isn't how it really works is it? These guys are on a tight schedule, which doesn't allow them a lot of time to work on team building. Last season we saw a completely different blue team, one that won the first challenge and wanted to keep winning. They did those crazy practices in the backyard of the house, which were laughable, but even the members of the team who thought they were silly, admitted they were good for building team unity. And they were right. 

This season of Top Shot has shown just how critical focus is to this game, and just how a far a team can fall when they don't have it. Going back to my initial point I can only imagine how hard it is for a team to try and wash their hands of the bad feelings left over from a loss and try and turn their attitudes around in just three days (or less). Vaughan can give all the speeches he wants (and props to him for doing what needed to be done) and his team can nod along and agree with him as much as they want, but if they don't actually commit to what he's trying to preach, they are going to continue to struggle in this competition.

Now for this week's Top and Not-so-Top Shots.

Not-so-Top Shots:

Gregory Littlejohn, Mr. Friendship bracelet himself. The thing about Littlejohn is, I'm starting to come around to him. Not in a, "This guy is pretty cool" way, but more in a "I'm am completely fascinated by this guy" way. Littlejohn is, for better or worse, becoming this season's standout character. Season 2 had the irritable coaching of Jay Lim, which quickly faded when he had no one else to coach. Season 3 had the irritable coaching and mind games of Jake Zweig. Littlejohn is neither of these things. He isn't someone who is trying to dominate the way his team is run, and he isn't someone who is sullying the unspoken honor of this competition through manipulation (unless he is, in which case, he's a genius). He's simply a guy who likes to have his friends around him. I have a theory  that every reality show has a character that is representative of the kid no one wanted to play with during grade school. On Jersey Shore, it's The Situation. On Deadliest Catch, it's Captain Keith. I think Littlejohn is Top Shot's version of this character. These people suddenly find themselves forced into social situations, and it overwhelms them. It can go two ways, the person pushes the people they are surrounded by away (The Situation) or they bring them uncomfortably close (Littlejohn). Colby has tweeted his own confusion as to Littlejohn's ability to put this tremendous amount of weight on relationships with people he has know for less than two weeks. It was also evident by Colby's dazed expression over what has become know as the "friendship bracelet ceremony". He just couldn't seem to understand how Littlejohn and Gallagher had become so close, and Gallagher seemed to be right there with Colby. 

Back tracking a little, Littlejohn is also have a clear problem with nerves in this competition, and his inability to knock an arrow allowed the red team to regain their composure and lead themselves to a win. From the preview of next week's episode, this doesn't look like a problem that is going away anytime soon, but Littlejohn might. 

Oh, and how about his closing comment about how that blue team better realize that they shouldn't send him to elimination if they don't want to send someone else home? HELLO? LITTLEJOHN? If your team is headed to elimination, someone is going home regardless if they nominate you or not. C'mon man.

I'm also going to throw up Gun Fauxeri for again saying he wanted to be in the elimination challenge. No you don't.

Top Shots:

Augie Malekovich finally started to speak up in this episode. I was beginning to forget this guy was here. He gets marks for expressing the confusion I think most of us were feeling during the bracelet ceremony. He also had the line of the night with his "31 year-old man giving a 36 year-old man a friendship bracelet" outrage.

Also speaking up this episode, Iggy Keyes and Gary Shank. Keyes is starting to finally look more comfortable in front of the camera, while Shank, like Augie, was a guy I had all but forgotten about. I hope we continue to see a little more from all three of these guys as the season continues.

That's it for this analysis. Let me know your thoughts on friendship bracelets and the like in the comments.

Come back tomorrow for the Friday Surprise addressing a question Colby raised on Twitter during this weeks episode. 

Follow me on Twitter @cswiets

Top Shot Recap: S4 E4 "Crossbow Crossfire"

Where to being on this one? This season of Top Shot continues to get progressively better as the contestants get progressively stranger. It is episodes like this that make me wish I didn't separate my recaps from my analysis, but that serves a purpose, namely keeping my thoughts straight. So unfortunately, I won't be commenting (too much) on a lot of drama in this episode until tomorrow. For now, let's take a look at what went down in "Crossbow Crossfire"

The episode started with Terry Vaughan nailing Michelle Viscusi's target to the wall and Gregory Littlejohn wrapping it in one of his friendship bandanas. This was quickly followed by, what my mother likes to call, a Come-to-Jesus led by Vaughan. The fracture in the blue team runs a lot deeper than what the cameras have been showing, and despite Vaughan's encouraging and level-headed words of wisdom that his teammates needed to pull themselves together, it seemed that blue team was destined to once again struggle through the team challenge.

On the range the contestants found they would be shooting a modern version of an ancient weapon, the BowTech StrykeZone 350 crossbow. (A weapon that proved as difficult to say as it was to shoot for the blue team*) The key to StrykeZone was the reload, something expert Chris Brackett took extra care instructing the contestants on. There was no clear advantage during the practice, but there was a slight edge for the red team since Tim Trefren's experience as a big game guide made him familiar with the weapon.

However, Trefren quickly learned the danger of touting one's experience on Top Shot, as he found himself benched by the blue team for the team challenge. The challenge featured contestants going head to head shooting at a rotating target. The number of targets would increase in each round. The first contestants would have one target each, the second, two and so forth through six contestants. Each target was worth a point, but when a contestant hit all of their targets the round was over, and their opponent would have to cease shooting.

The red team found themselves in quick hole after the first two rounds, down three to nothing. However, slowly but surely, they crawled back and made this challenge into a real contest. Blue began to make some critical errors with Vaughan hitting the same target twice and Littlejohn freezing up knocking his first arrow. While Trefren could not participate in the challenge, he was quite a vocal presence, coaching his teammates through the challenge. That coaching, combined with the smooth shooting of Chee Kwan and Chris Cheng, led red team to their second consecutive win and sent blue team back to the nomination range.

At the house, it was Colin Gallagher who fell on the sword this week, calling himself out for his poor performance. Littlejohn reluctantly offered himself up as well, but commented that he felt Vaughan should have spoken up more about his performance. On the range Gun Fauxeri made a bit of a fool of himself by hitting the outside ring of Gallagher's target. In the end it was Colin and Littlejohn who were headed to elimination.

They discovered they would be shooting the Smith & Wesson M&P40, a favorite among law enforcement. Top Shot featured its first ever female expert, Julie Golob, to help Littlejohn and Gallagher. Again, during practice, neither contestant seemed to hold an advantage over the other, both struggling to hit a moving target from a stationary position.

The elimination challenge marked this season's first appearance by balloon targets. Each contestant was faced with a large wall that had a triangle cut out of the center of it. Going head to head the contestants had to shoot a small target on the left or right of the triangle, releasing a pendulum with ten balloon targets (big targets on the bottom, small ones on top). Each time the pendulum swung it would get stuck on the opposite side and the contestant would have to hit the small target on the corresponding side to release it again. The objective was simple, first contestant to shoot all their balloon targets would win.

After an even start Littlejohn began to pull away with it, the score at one point being 9-4 in favor of Littlejohn. However, nerves (and shadows, more on that tomorrow) once again proved to be Littlejohn's weakness, and Gallagher managed to catch up and make it an even match at 9-9. This didn't last long though, as Littlejohn managed to hit his final target and pull out a win.

Gallagher was sent packing, but not without a parting friendship bandanna from Littlejohn, who seemed to like Gallagher a whole lot more once he knew he wasn't going to be around him anymore.

Phew! Writing that was kind of like holding your breath for a very long time. Those are facts, come back tomorrow for the opinions, because we're going to have some fun.

Next week: Pirates!

Follow me on Twitter @cswiets


*A cheap shot, but I couldn't resist.

Top Shot Analysis: S4 E3 "Shotgun Showdown"

"Shotgun Showdown" may be the best episode of the season so far, which I know isn't saying a lot three episodes into the season. This episode gave us some amazing weapons, some cool challenges, and a little bit more insight into how the contestants are playing this game.

Once again, I'll break it down by challenges and contestants, and this week there's plenty to talk about in both categories.

The Challenges
This week's team challenge (dubbed "Double Tap Challenge" thank you Wikipedia) featured two kinds of shotguns, firing two kinds of ammunition. The Benelli M4, one mean looking gun,  and the Benelli Vinci, a gun that looks as beautiful as it sounds. (Seriously, I'm not the kind of person who calls inanimate objects sexy, but that gun was damn sexy.)

Top Shot continues to experiment with how to do challenges, which is keeping things fresh this season. I don't think we've seen a challenge set up quite the way this one was. 

I loved the two step process of this challenge and the fact contestants only scored points for the clay targets. It added a lot of tension to the challenge knowing that the moving target had to be hit before any points could be score. This wasn't too much of a problem for the red team who demonstrated incredible rhythm in this challenge, but blue team could not get it together, missing critical shots on the moving and clay targets. 

I was initially worried the time limit on this challenge might prevent contestants in the back of the line the opportunity to shoot both weapons. I didn't want to see an issue like the one we ran into last week where Iggy didn't get a chance to even participate in the challenge. However, this didn't turn out to be a problem and, again with red team, we were able to see the speed at which this challenge could be executed. On the other hand, with blue team, we could see how detrimental taking your time with this challenge could be to your overall score. 

This challenge also demonstrated that last weeks shouting chaos on blue team at the end of the team challenge was just the tip of the iceberg. We saw the complete collapse of this team not only in the house, but on the practice range, and most importantly in the team challenge. I've never heard a team be so quiet out of what seemed to be genre disinterest, rather than intense focus, in a challenge. 

The elimination challenge ("Horse Race"), as I mentioned in my recap, had the feel of a carnival game. I wish I understood physics more to understand how they came up with a challenge where shooting they target could actually hurt the contestants progress. This challenge was all about precision, specifically timing your shots. The timing aspect is a skill heavily emphasized in this episode, and one that displayed the proficiency of the shooters. While Viscusi panicked and started firing off rounds willy-nilly, Vaughan was able to find a slow and steady pace to rock the wheel down the track and stay in the competition.

The Contestants

As the number of contestants slowly starts to dwindle, we are starting to see more of how each one is playing the game. Gregory Littlejohn started the episode showing how fractured the blue team had become over the course of two challenges. The nomination discussion between the blue teams members was particularly revealing.

Now I don't intend for this part of the blog to become repetitive, but at this point in the show there are still too many contestants to give fair screen time to. I'll do my best to keep my thoughts fresh.

So once again I'll break down my Top and Not-so-Top Shots from this episode.

Not-so-Top Shots:

Michelle Viscusi proved that not only could she not handle the Benelli, but also that her vocabulary did not extend beyond the phrase "kick ass". Part of blame could be placed on how the show is edited (which in my opinion was spectacular for this episode), but she must not have said to much else if that was all they showed.

Gregory Littlejohn broke down and continued his slide to the bottom of my favorite shooters list. Not only did he show his disregard for the integrity of this competition by telling the rest of his team he would not vote for his friends (a claim Colby openly mocked on Twitter during the episode), but he also broke down discussing his decision to vote for Vaughan, even though Vaughan was ALREADY VOTED INTO THE DAMN CHALLENGE! (again, props to the editors for drawing this out, because it was hilarious) However, I will give credit where credit is due to Littlejohn for responding to the red teams wish of"good luck" with a brief "Thanks." He saved his entire team from looking like complete dicks. 

I'd mention Gun Fauxeri again, but there isn't much new I can say, the guy is just too cocky to be likable.

On to the good, although I should take this point to mention the contestants for the most part didn't really do anything to win me over or tick me off, so I apologize if this section is a little shorter than usual.

Top Shots:

Let's start with the welcome return of Season 2 winner Chris Reed. Granted this is kind of a cheat since he isn't a constant but from his joking with Colby, to his instruction on the Benelli, to his congratulatory talk with red team after their win, he was a welcome presence on the show.

I'm also starting to come around on Kyle Sumpter. He has a slightly robotic personality that reminds me of Mitt Romney, but he's proving himself to be a strong team leader.

While I don't mean for this to become a Terry Vaughan cheering section, I can't fail to mention him once again. This week he continued to display his levelheadedness when discussing his teams complicated dynamics. In addition he demonstrated his ability to overcome his weaknesses by mastering the Nova and pulling out a win in the elimination challenge. 

Sideshots

Just  few stray observations I wanted to comment on quickly, mostly involving the fashion being displayed in this week's episode. 

Is this the first time the women are wearing different style polos than the men? I always thought all the contestants wore polos with buttons, but Viscusi and Franco were both wearing buttonless ones that just had a shallow-V.

Why was everyone wearing bandanas on their wrists? I can't imagine it helps with shooting, but who knows? Colby commented on Twitter that they were friendship bracelets, but contestants on both teams were wearing them. I'll be curious to see if they pop up next week.

The other thing about Kyle Sumpter that is winning me over? Those sweet hats he and Chee Kwan are wearing during the practice sessions. Love it.

That's it for "Shotgun Showdown," next week we move away from firearms and into crossbows. 

Come back tomorrow for my surprise mystery post dealing with one aspect of this season of Top Shot I have overlooked. 

Follow me on Twitter @cswiets